Playing in a Slow Decay
Text by Momomi Harada
Translated by Kei Ota
日本語 で読む
My first encounter with the Crying Children Party was in June two years ago, in a minivan at the entrance of an art supplies store. While the minivan usually carried flyers for different events and exhibitions, it was then occupied by an organization with a pink theme called “Crying Children Party.” Formed in May 2021, the minivan takeover was the first coordinated activity by the party, with images resembling election posters plastered over the vehicle.
Inside the van were also political campaign posters photographed and printed like the real ones in public, attached to something that resembled an election board. Objects purportedly owned by the party surrounded the board, such as Dali-esque clocks that looked like melting cheese labeled “Crying Children Party Clocks," a bath toy duck labeled “Crying Children Party Duck,” and what looked to be a worn-out directory labeled “Crying Children Party Address Book.” At the time, it all appeared as a mishmash of chaos.
There was and still is a part of me that couldn’t gauge what the Crying Children Party was doing at the minivan, but I could sense its spirit. Perhaps its momentum was a determined pledge that the political party of the Crying Children Party was here to stay.
The Crying Children Party is an art project conceived by artist rajiogoogoo that mimics the campaign of a Japanese political party. After growing up in China’s Henan Province and graduating from a college in Sichuan Province, rajiogoogoo came to Japan to study abroad and came across Tokyo’s gubernatorial campaign. Struck by the differences in the democratic electoral system and the establishment of fringe party candidates compared to China, rajiogoogoo was inspired that they too could conduct a convincing political campaign. (“A Society Radically Changing and the Fever Within” DOUBLE ANNUAL 2023 Slightly Feverish: Heat of Reaction, Strength for New Life Preview Exhibition）
The Crying Children Party would go on to operate at various (art) exhibition venues afterward. As part of the preview exhibition of the joint exhibition between Kyoto University of the Arts and Tohoku University of Art and Design DOUBLE ANNUAL 2023 (with its final exhibition culminating at the National Art Center in Tokyo), the minivan from the art supplies store was recreated true to size in resin and displayed alongside an election campaign video. rajiogoogoo explains the impetus behind the political party in the video, citing an experience where they were told to “stop crying” after being beaten by their parents, who beat them further because they were crying. This episode sparked a desire in rajiogoogoo to build a society where anyone could “cry freely” and true to its name, the Crying Children Party is for children who cry.
Borne out of personal experience, rajiogoogoo’s political party, in the manner of an art project, has also produced pocket tissues (commonly distributed as advertisements on the street) to use when crying and campaign songs to promote itself along with its exhibitions. They created three songs, “The Crying Children Party Song,” “~The Crying Children Party Theme~” and “Crying Children Song Kyoto Version,” which parodies “Shall We Gather at the River," also known as Bic Camera’s theme song, “Miracle Shopping (Don Quijote’s theme song),” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” also colloquially known as Yodobashi Camera’s theme song. Sung in shaky and hushed tones, the parodies are catchy with their distinct lyrics.
Whenever I think about it
Beaten by my parents and running away
Let our tears run wild and free
It’s okay to feel bad
C-c-c crying ch-ch-children party
We are not failures
(No we’re not)
“Crying Children Party Theme Song”
According to rajiogoogoo, every person harbors a “crying child,” created from moments of suppressing the urge to cry or being told not to to cry. Crying included, sometimes I myself feel that society prevents us from revealing our true emotions by what is expected as “proper adult etiquette.” Society seeks us to be more rational than emotional; maybe it is true that the former is better to keep things operating smoothly. The printed sign of “Wishing for Victory” at the “Crying Children Party Office” presented at KIKA gallery in June 2022 conveyed what the party resists, against the notion that “‘Adult’ equals ‘Society’.” The objective of “Crying Children Party” lies in simulating a political party that symbolizes this condition of “‘Adult’ equals ‘Society’” but it is through mimicry that the artist brings closure to their past and tries to (seriously?) enact change in society.
Though the Crying Children Party Office that I put together with rajiogoogoo physically embodied the office of a political party, its true aim was to create a space in which anybody could participate in the Crying Children Party. Through a declared public opinion poll at the venue, personal experiences related to crying were gathered and displayed. Crying describes a physiological phenomenon encompassing moments of grief, joy, or compassion, and even those with specific intentions such as fake crying. The public opinion poll revealed these distinct reasons or catalysts for why we cry. What I was most surprised by was that this survey on crying divulged a plethora of personal stories we normally don’t get to hear. This attempt to provide an outlet and forum for difficult topics is similar to Mónica Mayer’s The Clothesline, a work Mayer has continued to work on since 1978.
The Clothesline is a participatory artwork by Mónica Mayer that was exhibited in Japan at the 2019 Aichi Triennial and the Shibuya PARCO mall in 2022. Since its debut at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City in 1978 and its exhibition in various parts of the world, the work invites female visitors to anonymously record their experiences from daily life on discrimination, oppression, sexual harassment, or violence on small slips of paper and pin them on clotheslines. This work provokes dialogue by breaking the silence of the invisible “voiceless,” and revealing gender inequalities. While The Clothesline was a form of initiative for people who identify as female, the Crying Children Party’s public opinion poll was intended for all those with an internal “crying child.” Whereas The Clothesline is displayed aesthetically with the most minimal elements and borrows certain stereotypes of femininity, with its pink, purple, and beige paper pinned to pink laundry poles, the Crying Children Party used white printer paper thumbtacked to a board or filed in an organized manner. Although this display couldn’t help but evoke the routine clerical organization common in Japan’s daily life, rajiogoogoo’s exhibition method leaves some room for reconsideration.
As previously mentioned, a feature of rajiogoogoo’s political party is that it mimics that of a Japanese political party despite its incompletion (I say incompletion because the party only mimics the appearance of a political party, despite how it operates within an art context rather than actual politics, where there are a myriad of legal rules and regulations strictly applied to political parties and their elections). Though anyone can technically participate in Japan’s democracy, officially entering the elections requires hundreds of signatures for the city council or thousands of signatures for the Upper House and spending quite some campaign money. In recent years, corruption issues have also plagued headlines, such as the influence of organized entities such as religious organizations and the continued dominance of hereditary politics. Despite the presence of fringe candidates, it is not easy to become a politician and change society.
I would like to bring in another work by rajiogoogoo. In their Deadbeat’s Room (2021) installation, viewers peered through a hole in the wall to see a room recreated where Aum Supreme Truth cult leader Shoko Asahara was found in at the time of his arrest in 1995. In the room lay a mannequin wearing the hot pink suit and electrode-studded head gear Asahara had worn, amidst flyers covering the walls and various items piled up on the floor. Many of these items were related to anime, manga, and contemporary art; these were personal items of rajiogoogoo and sources of entertainment in their reclusive life. Deadbeat’s Room was a work that paralleled the artist's self-referential declaration as a “dirty room dweller” with the last known location of the god-like figure within the Aum Supreme Truth cult. Unable to discern personal items from trash, those who live in such “dirty rooms” forsake the mess and choose to slowly rot amidst their belongings.
To slowly decay or to “strangle with cotton wool”—these phrases seem to embody the state of politics today (though “slowly” may not be an apt word). Last July, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated by Tetsuya Yamagami, one of the family members victimized by the former Unification Church. Despite the ongoing revelations of the collusion of religious organizations and political parties, the sense that these subjects are taboo remains. However, these entities are inseparable from all of us who live in this country. They are inextricable with the politics that determine the rights and restrictions of the people who live here and influence their decisions. Though these are difficult issues for even myself who has been in Japan for a long time, rajiogoogoo seems to easily confront them through their practice. They boldly handle and incorporate these issues into their work so effortlessly that it almost seems arrogant–probably because at the core of rajiogoogoo’s practice lies the element of play. In this sense, the Crying Children Party was an exercise that was comedic, genuine, and slightly absurdist.
Crying Children Party”s Office
2022.06.02-06.12 Fri / Sat / Sun
Open 12:00 - 17:00 at KIKA gallery
Momomi Harada
Born in Osaka in 1996, Harada is a curator and writer. In 2022, they received their master's degree from the Global Seminar program at Kyoto University of the Arts. They are interested in curating, organizing, and facilitating events and spaces through collaborative means. As a graduate student, they were a curatorial intern at the National Museum of Art in Osaka and a member of the Kansai Queer Film Festival executive committee. From 2022 to 2024, they oversaw the planning and management of exhibitions at PURPLE art space. Notable projects include “Layering Waves” book study group (PURPLE, 2022-2024), “Meeting Point Shijo Karasuma” (KYOTO EXPERIMENT, 2023), and rajiogoogoo: Crying Children Party Office (KIKA gallery, 2022).
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